Which component in Splunk is specifically responsible for data ingestion?

The forwarder is specifically responsible for data ingestion in Splunk. Forwarders are lightweight agents installed on the machines where the data resides. Their primary role is to collect, parse, and send data to the indexers for further processing and indexing. There are two types of forwarders: universal forwarders, which are used mainly for lightweight data collection without processing capability, and heavy forwarders, which can perform more complex data parsing and processing before sending data to the indexer.

By effectively managing the data collection process, forwarders play a critical role in ensuring that data flows into the Splunk ecosystem smoothly and efficiently. This setup allows for a distributed architecture where data can be ingested from various sources across different environments into a centralized platform for analysis.